I started traveling on April 29 and came back here in San Francisco on May 13 as scheduled. It took 2 weeks to drive about 5,600 miles that is longer than the distance between San Francisco and Tokyo.
This trip was just amazing! I can’t forget every single day of this trip.
The Maps and Pics
Here is overview of the trip, which you can experience the highlights with seeing the driving route within 3 minutes. (Please have some patience. It may take for a while to prepare the presentation. I recommend you to see it in full-screen mode.)
The links to each day are as follows:
Day 1 – from San Francisco via Manzanar to Las Vegas
Day 2 – Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park
Day 3 – UT-12, 24, Arches N.P., and Moki Dugway
Day 4 – Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon and Kolob Canyons
Day 5 – Salt Lake City and Drive to Jackson, WY
Day 6 – Grand Teton N.P. and Yellowstone N.P.
Day 7 – Yellowstone N.P. and Flathead Lake
Day 8 – Glacier N.P. and Canada border
Day 9 – North Cascades N.P. and Wahington State Ferry
Day 10 – Olympic N.P., Pike Place Market and Ichiro
Day 11 – UW and Ichiro
Day 12 – Mt. Rainier N.P. and Portland
Day 13 – Crater Lake NP and Redwood NP
Day 14 Final – Whiskeytown Lake and San Francisco
The total mileage for 14 days was 5,622 miles, which was longer than the distance between San Francisco and Tokyo. (For your reference, it was 6,767 miles during my last road trip from San Diego to Florida.) The number of national parks which I visited this time was 12.
Road Trip Lessons Learned
Here are some of lessons learned from this road trip:
- If you are wondering to find place to stay, you should choose Motel 6.
- Useful application or internet services are Kayak (to find motel), Weather Channel (website, iApp and TV program)
- Needless to say, I couldn’t have such great trip without iPhone and GPS (mine is Garmin).
- You should call 511 to make sure the road is open in this season.
- +8MPH is not acceptable for driving faster than speed limit in state of Idaho
- Subway sandwich is necessary for such a long trip because they are almost everywhere and you can take some vegetable
- Summer in NP usually starts in Memorial Day weekend (End of May)
Maps – Essential to road trip
I like to get guide maps of national parks. They are not only useful, but also good design. National park services are doing great marketing and branding. Guide maps, logos and websites are made as same and consistent design.
State maps show their uniqueness of the state. I did not get the maps, but actually drove in Nevada and Arizona, too. California map is the one I got before. Utah has two kinds of official highway map, somehow…
BGM
This song got stuck in my head whenever I saw “beautiful” scenery.
The Simple Map
Drove 5,622 miles on this route.
(Last updated on May 25)
Fruit Flies Like a Banana 
OMG, what trip You have made!!! I envy You.
So many miles in so short time. I guess that You saw a lot of things. Are preparing a book about Your car travels? Your red mustang is a cool car.
I have been in the west once and then I drove fro SFO, Las Vegas, LAX and back to SFO. But we were a family then with one small child.
I see that You like cars and driving, so do I. In the beginning of June I’ll go to German again and I love there driving fast with my Arden Blue Car.
If You check my car blogs, then You’ll find plenty photos from my blue car.
http://sartenada.wordpress.com/category/cars/
I guess also that Germany might be ideal to You to drive, because there one can drive as fast Your car is going.
My car passing there, my video, at the speed of 150.4 miles / hour.
Best regards.
Sorry, I forgot the link:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Justusosaa#p/u/2/GVQcQWbTsMg
You may delete this.
Your video is awesome! I want to drive on autobahn in Germany over 200 km/h, too. Okay, to driven on autobahn is now in my wish list. 🙂
Hi Sean, what an incredible trip!! I now believe the amount of miles 😉 and the video, fantastic! I look forward seeing you again in June in SF!
Cheers,
Valerie
Hi Valerie!
I am glad I proved my word in our conference call. 🙂
5,600 miles for 2 weeks sounds impossible, but it is possible if you travel by yourself and make full use of IT.
I like great natures in the U.S, but have interesting in Europe where you live and travel. I have only been to Italy before, so probably next trip destination would be Spain, Germany, or France, maybe Netherlands!
Looking forward seeing you next month in person again!